Waynesboro: Named for Mad Anthony Wayne

The Shenandoah Valley town of Waynesboro takes its name from a Revolutionary War hero, and saw the last major Confederate stand in the Valley before the end of the Civil War.

A settler named Joseph Tees established a homestead here in seventeen thirty-nine, and the small community that grew up was called Teesville. By seventeen ninety-seven it had been renamed Waynesborough, honoring General Anthony Wayne, nicknamed Mad Anthony for his aggressive battlefield style, who had fought at Brandywine and Stony Point. The Virginia General Assembly formally recognized the town in eighteen oh one.

The decisive Civil War moment came on March second, eighteen sixty-five, when Union cavalry under General George Custer routed Confederate General Jubal Early's remaining forces here in under two hours. Early barely escaped; more than a thousand of his men were captured. The Battle of Waynesboro effectively ended Confederate resistance in the Shenandoah Valley about five weeks before Appomattox.